Comment by UncleOxidant
2 years ago
Wouldn't the simulation program itself be the "divine plan"? Simulation theory implies that there is a programmer of the simulation. That programmer (or programmers) had the equivalent of a "divine plan" when they created the simulation. Whether or not they're interventionist in the simulation doesn't seem to all that important. There are creationist deists who believe that a god created everything, got it going and then lets it run on it's own without any intervention - how is that different?
When Creationists talk about a divine plan, my understanding is that they mean something with positive moral valence and where humans are significant. A simulation theory "divine plan" could be anywhere from a multiversal science experiment on which of the possible physics create the longest lasting universe or someone explicitly trying to torture us or incomprehensible beings doing something alien and incoherent or, yes, something benevolent where we are significant. I mean, sure, it's technically a metaphysical 'plan' but not really moreso than our laws of physics are if we weren't in a simulation.
I think there's a substantial difference between saying God has a plan for us and saying that our universe was likely manufactured in another for some unknown reason. Also, and I may be mistaken here, I think Creationists generally believe that the plane in which God exists is the top level (and therefore God must be a significant entity), while simulationists think it's only marginally more likely that our parent universe is not a simulation.
> I think there's a substantial difference between saying God has a plan for us and saying that our universe was likely manufactured in another for some unknown reason.
Either way it would be saying that the universe we perceive was created by an intelligent agent as opposed to by naturalistic forces. Doesn't seem to matter whether that intelligent agent had a specific plan in mind for humans or not - sure, some creationists might stress that there's a positive plan for humans specifically, but I'm not sure all creationists would say this. [There are a lot of different types of creationists - 6day creationists, intelligent designer creationists, evolutionary creationists, deists, etc. - the common denominator is that an intelligent agent initially got the universe going ]
> while simulationists think it's only marginally more likely that our parent universe is not a simulation.
so simulations all the way down?